(All the images in this post click through to the full size version.)
Mr Payne is older, twelve years older, and living in Brazil. He’s no longer a cop with nothing to lose, and instead is a bodyguard for a wealthy Sao Paulo family. Rockstar have sent over a bunch of images of the new game, showing our favourite emotionally-tortured slow-mo diving dude in the process of dealing with Brazil’s unpleasantly-armed urban underworld. The game is being developed with the RAGE engine which powered GTA4, although with some modifications, including “brand-new particle physics technology to deliver spectacular, highly advanced close-quarters combat” and “an intelligent cover system”. Rockstar also report that “Bullet-Time, an addiction to painkillers, mature themes and Max’s ever-present internal monologue” will all be present in the new game. So that’s good.
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This would look better at night me thinks, if you’ve seen Brazil’s slums at night (I’ve only seen photos) it doesn’t look like a place I would want to be.
Also, since it’s the same engine as GTA IV, will it have Euphoria in it? So that I can dive into people and knock them over.
“No NY
No Noir
No Remedy
No point
No Max Payne 3″
No West Coast
No seriously written fiction
No Black Isle
No point
No Fallout 3
See what I did there?
I don’t care if the game is awesome
Surely that’s all that matters, ultimately. Getting upset about altering franchise templates is one thing, saying that keeping things “in the tradition of” is more important than good games being produced is a little silly.
Surely you cannot support this horrific abuse of the license?
From what I’ve seen so far, Rockstar are doing nothing to develop the “Max Payne” franchise, all they seem to be doing is cashing in on the license.
Its like making a Star Trek sequel with Lightsabers and the introduction of “The Force”… just because thats what some marketing dude thinks will sell.
You lost me at cover system.
You people are fun. Cashing in on the license? R* are rank amateurs compared to the likes of what Square-Enix have done with Final Fantasy over the years, or how Namco has pimped out Pacman in all sorts of ways.
But when R* tries something different for the first time with an established character, it’s all hell to pay. lulz.
Remember, kids: it’s only noir if it’s in B&W, grainy or set during night time. Taxi Driver ain’t noir!
@Diogo
Final Fantasy is a Square Enix creation, they can do whatever they want with that, especially as it doesn’t have any kind of internal coherency between chapters and spin offs.
Max Payne is not Rockstar creation and it had an internal coherency (one that finished with Max Payne 2 by the way). Using the name for nothing else that for free marketing is what I’m complaining about, they may have a brand, but I question their right to just do whatever they want with it. If they wanted to make a kick ass third action game with cover system and bald main character they didn’t need Max Payne at all.
I’m not even going to bother properly joining the debat, all I have is eight little words in regard to the Film Noir set in a tropical location:
Orson fucking Welles, Charlton Heston: Touch of Evil.
@Acosta?
It would be great if brand expansion was solely dictated by who created it. I say this with no irony – I would have prefered if several games I know would have grown by the hands of those that created them. But that’s not how it works. What matters is who owns the brand now. Am I saying I enjoy everything a brand owner does with it? No (see: Fallout 3, X-Com spin-offs, Baldur’s Gate miscellanea on consoles, etc.). Am I saying they have the right to do so? Very much, yes.
Also, we’re talking about internal consistency (verisimilitude?) of a videogame where the lead character is shot repeatedly at point blank including headshots, takes pain-killers by the bucketload with no consequence, has overdosed on experimental drugs and survived, had the likeable but inept goon suddenly turn into a criminal masterming (Vlad), and saw Mona Sax dying in his arms only to actually be alive on a higher difficulty setting (”thank you Max but the princess is in a higher difficulty level!”)
But a bald head, muscles and a trip to Brasil is suddenly lacking in consistency? That’s actually more plausible than most Max went through the games. If they can’t properly convey the reasons for the change, that’s one thing. If they can, more power to them.
Besides, the story of Max Payne could very well have ended in the first title. It’s arguable whether there was a need for the sequel, even, in terms of character and story development.
*mastermind. “masterming” sounds like it came out straight of Defenders of the Earth.
@Diogo
Every medium has its own language and limitations. There are many great films that could get crushed if we overanalyze them. The discussion (for me at least) is not about if Max Payne it´s a master work of narrative, but a serious doubt about this sequel being nothing else than using successful name to get some extra marketing for their new third person action game, built over something they didn’t create.
This is how things works, no doubt, but I still have a right to complain about such cynicism. I see less and less respect for the brands in videogames, relegated to a role of attention grabbers and recognizable names, no matter if the game is a high point of the medium or an action game with some personality. I just want developers doing their own stuff, and searching their own ways, instead of trying to build their games over what others created.
@Acosta:
I’m not disagreeing with you on a base level – as I pointed out I would have prefered that several games, which were acquired by other studios or changed developers, were not something I enjoyed. But can we claim R* is doing something so different than what Remedy did with Max Payne 2? MP2 has been seen by some as unnecessary, only using a successful name to get marketing for a title which could have been something new instead.
Even if we somehow justify Remedy over R* because of right of ownership, there are many examples of games which benefited from outside talent to maintain relevancy in the medium, and that sometimes had to cut through what the original creators had done.
Looks bad imo. I don’t want Max Payne to be fat and bald, and I sure as hell do not want Max Payne in South America. Surely Rockstar is playing a joke on us?